


Like Scorpions for Chocolate

by feldman



Category: Farscape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:26:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feldman/pseuds/feldman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during "Liars, Guns & Money": intimacy isn't always good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Scorpions for Chocolate

"You lock the door  
Throw away the key  
There's someone in my head  
and it's not me."  
\--Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon"

  


"But I don't have a cat, John." An orange tabby kitten climbs up DK's pant leg, yowling for breakfast. He tries to look stubborn but looks besieged instead, bleary-eyed in the morning sun.

I take a seat on his kitchen counter and kick at the lower cabinets. "So what are you doing with the tuna, then?"

"I'm being kind to a stray animal." The cat plants a paw above his waistband. "Ouch--Felicia, bad kitty!"

I laugh through my yawn. "She's not a stray if she spends every night in your apartment and has a name."

"I'm just not a cat person." He pulls Felicia off his jeans and puts her down with the food. She bathes his sleek black finger before climbing onto the large plate to eat.

"But see, she loves you. Besides, you spend so much time at the lab it's the only pussy you're likely to get."

He stands, fully Scorpius now, tight suit squeaking in the quiet. _"That's funny flyboy, I don't see any girls lining up to get their hands down your flight suit."_

"Damn it." I shake my head and the sunlight dims. I'm back in the maintenance bay where I was all along. **You know I hate PK-DK.** He can hear me when I think to him. Can he also feel my hate?

I flinch when Chiana tilts her face up into mine. She breathes her milk breath up my nose, eyes wide and concerned. "Crichton?"

 _She nuzzles just like DK's kitten._ Scorpy's right behind her, dragging a finger along her collarbone. _Sensual and mercenary._

"Crichton...what's wrong...?" Unsuspecting, she tosses her dandelion hair against his cheekbone.

 _There's nothing wrong with a little bestiality._

 **She's not a beast. She's a huma-, a sentient being of a different species.**

He smiles with too many teeth, gums black like a Doberman. _I think we've made a breakthrough._

My scalp itches something fierce.

"It's the chip...isn't it?" His spidery hand cups her throat. He moves with her as she leans closer to me.

 **What--what are you doing?**

 _Accessing your language area. I didn't see it before, but you seem to need words to form your thoughts clearly. Hence, you are bound by your vocabulary. It's time I expanded it, so we can think bigger thoughts. I will give in order to receive._

I find myself scratching my head with the tool in my hand.

Chiana leans in like she's trying to count my fillings. "Do you want me to get Zhaan...?"

"If I knew exactly where he was in my brain, Chiana..." Every place I scratch makes three more places itch. "I'd dig him out myself."

She takes the tool from me, sockets it into a DRD and shoos it out of the bay.

 **Sundown, I think it's a shame, when I get feeling better when I'm feeling no pain. Sundown, I think it's a sin, when I feel like I'm winning when I'm losing again.**

I keep it running through my head like a radio left on in another room. Mom was a big Gordon Lightfoot fan. I'm pleasantly surprised by how much of the lyrics I remember once I start humming it. Reminds me of her.

"John, are you chanting?"

Zhaan has a way of falling in step next to me. I never see her coming, but she never startles me. She's nervous, though, a little sweaty at the temples. There's a lot at stake and John-boy's humming to himself like Stark.

 _Her fear scent is reminiscent of fresh-mown grass. You could tell her, but she wouldn't take it for a compliment. She wouldn't understand, but I do. I can see the blue sky that she brings to mind. I can feel the sun on our back._

"Just a song stuck in my head. I don't know why, but singing seems to block him out for a while. I don't remember much from the one biology course I had to take, so I couldn't tell you how it works." I was going to be an astronaut, what would I need neuroanatomy for?

"The Delvian Seek uses chanting to access alternate states of consciousness. Perhaps song creates a similar peaceful state in your species?"

Scorpy's only half right. Zhaan smells like a woman who's just mowed a lawn, dusty sharp mix of chlorophyll and girl sweat. "Well I don't know about peaceful--ask anyone who's ever been in a mosh pit--maybe more of a distraction."

Not sure which of us it's distracting, though. I wonder where my language areas are, exactly? Professor Stander would laugh her ass off if she saw me now. Haven't thought of that class in years.

 _Paging Dr. Broca...Dr. Broca...Paging Dr. Wernicke..._

That's the problem. Whether I talk to him or not, he's always digging.

 _If I'd had to sift through, say, Ka D'Argo's brain, this might have been over sooner. To think how tedious it would have been, though..._

 **So you're saying you prefer the long slow mind-fuck instead.**

 _Be honest. You finally have an audience that understands your imagery; someone to laugh at your jokes beside yourself._

 **I don't care if I have to be strapped down and sedated, I want to see you in agony.**

 _Yes. I've noticed your capacity for animal violence is larger than that of most Sebaceans. They're a dispassionate species. They use violence as a technician uses a tool. You, John, could be as bloodthirsty as a Scarran._

 _Blood-thirsty._

 _Sebaceans don't have this concept. It's quite delicious._

Aeryn brushes the back of her hand against mine, quick and accidental as we head toward the hangar bay.

She does it again, knuckles and soft skin, slower this time. Usually her public displays of affection are lewd and lightening fast. The PK Kama Sutra probably illustrates a thousand and one ways to screw while standing up and aiming over your partner's shoulder. But she's been trying out this 'tenderness' thing, recently. Maybe D'Argo's demonstrated that you can be a lover *and* a fighter. Or maybe she's pegged me for a sap.

Then again, maybe she suspects plan B.

 _What is this flavor? I get a taste of it when you look at her hair. It's bittersweet and complex, like blood or fine raslac._

The taste is no less real for being phantom. "Dark chocolate."

"What did you say?"

I shake my head. "Get the five-alarm Sheyang, Aeryn, hottest you can find."

She nods and starts the pre-flight routine on her prowler. She trusts me. I owe it to her to be sane.

 _Whatever it takes?_

 _I know you, John, like no one else ever will._

 **Yeah well, you know what they say, 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'.**

 _I remember the years you spent studying, text on your left knee, notebook on your right. Writing and diagramming through all-nighters, hangovers, and petty romantic disputes. Falling asleep in the library. In some respects, your mind is well-trained. I've completed the vocabulary upload much sooner than I had expected. We'll be reaping the benefit of it in no time at all._

I try to block out the remembering this time, but it intrudes.

I'm back in the lab at IASA. DK and I busted our balls to get our first project on the shuttle, and since neither of us would stop on our own, we took turns sending each other out for food. He rolls his chair into mine, intent on the code flying from his fingers. "John. Coffee. Food."

I stretch until my back cracks and my shoulder twinges. "Okay, but it's still too early for the good bagel shop to be open."

"Yeah yeah, John." He stops, pushes his glasses up. They slip back down the leatherette nosepiece of the mask that contorts his face. "I'm real close."

A DRD squeals and escapes my foot. **What did I say about PK-DK? Huh?**

 _But we are a team, are we not? You and I will be more successful than you and DK were. I assure you._

I was raised to believe that money doesn't buy you happiness. I've learned since then that money does buy you options. The only thing of value that we have left is nestled inside my cranium. One last option.

 _There is only one way for this to end. Why not choose your own time, and do your friends one last good turn to remember you by?_

 **Because I want to go home.**

 _Do you really? Could you stay there?_

 **No. I don't know. But I need to see it all again, for real.**

 _How are you sure it's still there?_

 **This would be so much easier if you weren't Captain of the frelling Debate Team.**

 _Well?_

 **No. I don't know if it's still there. It's actually pretty unlikely that the wormhole didn't distort time as well. I could get there and find it all gone. Or find a few scattered troops of homo habilis walking around scratching their asses.**

 _You feel lonesome._

 **I feel like Arthur fucking Dent.**

 _Perhaps a cup of tea will make you feel better?_

 **Can it, Moff Tarkin, I'm the funny one. I've got work to do, just... just leave me alone.**

 _We both have work to do. The difference is, I'm almost done with mine._

  


"You raise the blade  
you make the change  
you re-arrange me 'til I'm sane"  
\--Pink Floyd, "Dark Side of the Moon"

**Author's Note:**

> written 2001


End file.
